Theft was NOT in the budget

Ok I hate to be a Debbie Downer right off the bat because if you know me I'm typically a happy bubbly person.  I find the optimism in just about any situation.  Sure the last couple years have been well...unlucky and at time felt unfair but that's life right.  I once heard someone ask, "can you imagine how boring life would be if everything was just ok all the time and there were no ups and downs?"  That has stuck with me so even when bad things like theft happen, I try to find a lesson to be learned and move on.

So we have a storage unit that was broken into and they just so happened to steal everything that was in our garage from our last place...and I mean EVERYTHING!  Oh wait, they did leave us a rake and shovel.  Bless their hearts.  I don't know what you have in your garage but in the Bertie's garage we have tools galore and those tools were going to be used to build this house.  How the hell are you supposed to build a house without tools???  So of course panic and anger set in.  Little Lucy said, "they could have just asked for it."  Let's just say we heart to heart about working hard for the things you have and never taking anything from anyone.  They also wrecked some household items but the tools are the devastating part.  To make it worse...our deductible is $3400!!!  ::insert me slamming my head against a wall::  You see I was oblivious as to how our insurance worked.  Apparently our homeowners covers our storage unit, great...not so great!  We then have to pay that deductible even on our RENTED storage unit!  Because we thought we were being smart about paying lower premiums for higher deductible in case our house burned down at some point we thought we were good to go, except when "little" things like this happen it about knocks you over.  So Lesson #14038672 - pay more attention to your insurance policy and have them walk you through scenarios so that you don't feel misinformed.  I'm not gonna lie, I feel incredibly misinformed and while I take most the blame for it I sure wish my insurance agent would have piped in - just sayin'.

MOVING ON!  This weekend we worked on POWER!!!  We had to trench in the power from the power box to the house.  I'm pretty lucky here cause my Mr. Bertie is an electrician so we got the hook up!  I even got to run the trencher!  We also ran power out to the pet house/kids fort and also out to where a future shed will be...in the very far future ;)  It's better to get it in now rather than later when everything is looking spiffy.

Because a Trenching Selfie felt appropriate

We also put up all the outlet and switch boxes throughout the house.  When you marry an electrician you better believe your house is going to be well lit.  He also drilled through the studs to run the wire.    Tomorrow, if it's not too windy, they start the trusses and by the end of the week we'll be ready to shingle!!!

We also ran to Menards menards.com for some insulation as they were having the 11% Rebate and we will be doing insulation soon.  Let's talk numbers:


Underground Foam Insulation:
  BUDGET: $5658
  ACTUAL: $3850
  DIFFERANCE: +$1808 YAY!

House/Garage Insulation:
  BUDGETL: $5676
  ACTUAL: $4267
  DIFFERANCLE: +$1409 YAY again!  Plus we'll get 11% ($469) back in rebate!



TAKEAWAY:

    - I will encourage all of you to talk to your insurance agent about your current policy.  Do an all around look at your rates, premiums, deductibles and really get to know your situation so that you don't have to learn about it the hard way like us.  Oh and we did lower our deductible to $1k and no they will not do a separate policy for a storage unit - UGH!

  - Search for good deals people!  It pays off as you can see!

  -  If you are not on a budget yet I HIGHLY encourage you to get on one and everydollar.com is THE BEST budgeting tool out there.  So easy to use and I promise you that if you are not on a budget right now and you get on one, it will feel like an insta-raise!  "Tell your money where to go instead of wondering where it went." ~ Dave Ramsey

Oh and one last thing...we're having a Shingling Party this next weekend!  Beer, Pizza and Gas Gift Cards if you feel like helping the Berties out!

{as always we love hearing from you so feel free to post 

questions & comments and share with others!}

Well, well, well...where is the water?

Hello...anyone...anyone...Bueller...Bueller???  Oh there you are!  Pretty sure I may have lost a few of you these past couple weeks but we're still alive!  It's been nuts and so I have lots to update you on.  Before we do that I want to remind you that if you'd like to follow along feel free to sign up via e-mail on the blog!  You'll get an e-mail each time I post an update.

This week's good - we have walls!  The bad - finding water was a bitch.

First of all - WE HAVE POWER, and RUNNING WATER, and INTERNET!!!  It's amazing how much we take advantage of our lives having the basic necessities and until you don't have them you don't realize just how lucky you are.  Let's talk info & budget...ready?

Power:
  BUDGET:  $3600
  ACTUAL COST:  $2740 to the Electric Company & $50 to our neighbors as a thank you
  DIFFERENCE: +$810
 
  We have an incredibly long driveway - 800 feet to be exact.  To save a little money we shortened the distance bring the power line on the edge of our woods rather than following our driveway.  Our AMAZING neighbors Phill & Mary Kay (you'll hear a lot about these 2 - they are the best) cut down 5 trees for us so that we could trench the line a shorter distance.  They also trenched our internet cable at the same time.

Internet:
  We planned on cash flowing this if there were any extra costs.  Luckily there weren't any!  It just took them FOREVER to get it to us.  It took a lot of phone calls, a lot of following up to get them here and after an entire month they finally hooked me up.  A huge thank you to Matt & Sam Anderson for borrowing their laptop to me.  Try running a business without internet - IMPOSSIBLE!  I was becoming a regular at Caribou however I don't drink coffee so I ended up ordering a cookie and water.  Hey whatever works!

Water:
  BUDGET: $5500
  ACTUAL: We haven't received the final bill but it's looking like $13,078.
  DIFFERENCE: -$7578 - OUCH!

  The well has been our biggest learning experience and our biggest downer since beginning the project.  I have some major advice ahead so if you're ever planning to dig a well you'll want to read the following - if not feel free to skip over.

  ALWAYS over budget to make room for DRY HOLES.  We had a company (I'll leave their name out since it didn't end well but feel free to contact me for references if you need one) was the highest bid but was willing to match the lowest bid just to keep our business as we'd worked together in the past.  Our 3 bids for a 100' well came is as follows:
  1-$5,444
  2-$6,830
  3-$7,047
We thought great - we had trust and a better price.  Our first mistake was giving the bank the number $5,500.  We should have added at least $3,000+ as you end up paying in big time if you drill a dry well.  If you end up with dry holes then you have the money.  If you hit water the first time then you have wiggle room.  This company dug 3 dry wells!  The 2nd hole the rig broke down so we were not charged for it but 3 dry holes people!  And then they wanted to go 150 yards south of our house for the next hole.  That's when I stepped in and said enough was enough.  We had 2 well witches come out with that company and then independently had 2 more come out.  If you've never tried well witching, give it a go.  Adam's been shocked too many times so he wasn't able but it worked for me.  Anyway, we then had another well company come out and after a lot of discussion including scientific geological reasoning I was convinced they would be a good option.  I gave the other company one last shot telling them if they could get me running water for $10k or less we'd stick with them only they said they would but wouldn't use quality products - ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!  After a lot of discussion, me being pissed off with the situation we switched companies.  The new company found water 10' from the other company's second "dry" hole.  In the end we made the right decision letting the other company go.  You have to follow your gut in these situations.  Unfortunately the bank would not cover the first company's cost since we let them go so we had to come up with $4,218.00  -  yikes!  It sucks because it happened right away but it's a good thing too because now we can adjust our budget now rather than later.  There go my gorgeous kitchen countertops :(  Traut Wells out of Alexandria is the company we ended up going with and their bid came in at $8860 for a 180' well.  Our well ended up being 163' so there will be some adjustments made.

Here is us getting water!!!  It brought tears to my eyes!

We also had our footing installed.  Jackson got hands on experience working with block.  What a wonderful crew they were showing him the ropes.  Thank you Lake Mary Concrete!  They have been absolutely amazing to work with.

Then they backfilled and we went to work.  We bought foam for inside the walls of the footings and foam for the flooring.  $3850 from Menards.  

In-floor Heating:

  BUDGET:  $1700

  ACTUAL: $1245

  DIFFERENCE: +$455 - but we plan to sell the gun

Bought a PEX tubing staple gun ($200), staples ($165) and PEX($880) off of E-bay.

2nd Lesson Learned:  When doing IN-FLOOR HEAT you have the option of doing 1/2" or 5/8" tubing.  1/2" is cheaper but each run can only go 300' where 5/8" can go 500'.  The tube that we ordered off of Ebay was 1000' so we ended up with 3 sets of 100' of waste.  That's a lot of money!  This is good to know before you order and will save you money if you do it right.  Also, be sure to staple every 5 feet or so.  If you leave too much of a gap the cement will push the tubing up or move it out of place.  I ended up adding staples as the guys were pouring the cement.  Yet another lesson learned.  We also worked into the night.  A huge THANK YOU to Brandon Lennox for helping Adam while I was away at a shoot.

I realize this post was more informational than entertaining but I had to catch up on where we are today.  Speaking of...WE HAVE WALLS!!!

Ok off to bed!  Us Berties gotta get our sleep while we can!  Thanks again for following along!